David Bezmozgis - The Betrayers

— I understand, Kotler said and took Leora by the arm.

If righteous anger was the man’s negotiating tactic, Kotler didn’t care for it. He’d encountered it in more consequential settings and hadn’t indulged it there either.

— If you understand, then pay! the driver shouted after them.

Kotler and Leora crossed the street to the taxi stand.

— And they ask why we didn’t make peace with Arafat, Kotler said.

Since the man with the vest and the cap was the authority, Kotler addressed him.

— Fifty hryvnia, the man said, precluding any need to negotiate.

— Very well, Kotler replied.

He was surprised to see the man walk to the lead cab, shrug out of his vest, and toss it and the walkie-talkie through the driver’s-side window and onto the passenger seat. The man then opened the driver’s door and climbed inside. How the other cabbies were supposed to manage without his generalship, Kotler didn’t quite understand. But wasn’t that the beauty of life — when it departed from sense? The little car, another Lada, sputtered to life and Kotler and Leora took their places in the back.

The driver stepped on the accelerator and the car bolted forward. Traffic was sparse but the driver pressed ahead as if he were in a terrific hurry. He weaved around slower vehicles and aggressively took the turns. Kotler and Leora were thrown against each other like riders at a Luna Park.

— We’re on vacation, Kotler called to the driver.

— What’s that?

— We’re on vacation, my friend. We’re in no hurry.

— Ah, forgive me. Habit, the driver said and slowed down.

He glanced at them in the rearview mirror as though really seeing them for the first time.

— Where are you from? he asked.

— Moscow, Kotler said, after sifting through his mind for the appropriate choice.

— Moscow? Intellectual people like you? What are you doing here?

— Meaning?

— One doesn’t encounter many people from Moscow. Not intellectual people. I thought the fashion was to go west. To Turkey or Cyprus.

— We’ve been west. We got nostalgic for Crimea.

— I suppose, the driver said. If one hasn’t been for a long time. I don’t have the right perspective. I’m here every summer now for twelve years. To me, Cyprus sounds good. But for that you need money. Have you been there?

— I have, Kotler said. But only for work.

— You’re a businessman? A banker?

— No, nothing like that. International development.

— Oh yeah? the driver said, with due indifference.

Kotler had in fact been part of a UN-sponsored mission to see how deeply the Cypriot Turks and Greeks had buried their hatreds. Deep enough for radishes, Kotler had felt. In a generation or two, maybe deep enough for olives.

— Even after their crisis, I hear Russian people still keep accounts in Cyprus, the driver said.

— Apparently, Kotler said. I personally don’t. But Lena here does.

— Is that so? Is it hard to get one?

— The more money the easier, Leora said.

— Isn’t that the truth! the driver said mirthfully.

They had turned off the main road and started up into the darker foothills. The driver maneuvered the car along streets that were badly lit and seemingly unmarked. He accomplished this while swiveling his head back to better engage Leora on the subject of her fictitious numbered bank account. After all his illustrious battles, Kotler thought, wouldn’t this be a fitting end.

— If I had the money, I’d stash it there. Then I’d go on vacation and pay it a visit. The driver laughed. Now, that’s relaxation! A few hours on the beach and then pop into the cool vault to see my money, give it a little cuddle, make sure it’s safe and sound. Isn’t that how the rich live?

— Once a week, without fail, we go to the bank and cuddle our money, Leora said. Or our health suffers.

— Ha! the driver laughed again and sought Kotler’s eyes in the rearview mirror. What a girl! You’re a lucky man.

— Evidently, Kotler said.

— Does your missus know? the driver asked.

— Pardon?

— Your missus, the driver repeated affably. Mine is in Donetsk, where I’m from. I’m here only in the summers. To earn money. I have a girl here too. It’s natural. My missus knows but she has a modern attitude.

— Well, Kotler said, mine has an ancient one.

At the house, the lights were on in the front rooms. Through the closed windows, the unintelligible sound of a television program surged and plummeted. Holding hands, Kotler and Leora fumbled in the darkness along the side of the still-unfamiliar house. Kotler kept expecting to rouse a goose or a hen but the birds had apparently retired to their roosts. Sensible, reliable, domestic chicken life. Short on excitements but also on dismays.

Kotler found the lock with his key and opened the door. Leora crossed the threshold but Kotler tarried, still holding her hand.

— I should call home, he said. Call Dafna.

A look of apprehension played fleetingly across Leora’s face, quickly replaced by her native composure.

— I have to let them know I’m all right.

— Of course.

Leora stepped inside, leaving Kotler to close the door behind her.

He walked away from the house and stood in the middle of the patch of grass. It was the best he could manage under the circumstances. A father calls his young daughter to confess a sin of the flesh: such a call should be placed from the highest mountaintop or bobbing in the middle of the ocean, as a speck on a dark stage, reduced by biblical vastness. A conversation that, God forbid, none but God should overhear.

Three practiced swipes of his finger across the screen — a sequence of tiny movements so routine as to be almost unconscious — and Kotler was looking at Dafna’s name and phone number. He tapped the screen, and the little glass rectangle beamed its signal. Thus were such daunting actions undertaken now, with a few twitches of a fingertip. Nothing like the old mindful ceremony of writing a letter, bent at the kitchen table or in the solitude of a prison cell. Not even like the experience of the telephone booth, with the solid, goading, reproachful machine. Still, ceremony or no, the consequences remained the same. You made decisions and, sooner or later, you were called to account.

Kotler listened to the beseeching sound of the ringtone. He knew how the technology worked. At the other end, his name would appear, and Dafna would know who was calling. It was past eleven thirty at night in Yalta, the same time as Jerusalem. Dafna often spoke on the phone with her friends at this hour or later. He and Miriam had occasionally scolded her for it, though not with any conviction. She was a good girl, a conscientious student. By the standards of a modern eighteen-year-old, she could not even be called rebellious. Miriam would have liked her to be more devout, but given that Kotler’s own level of religious devotion left a lot to be desired, there was only so much Miriam could legitimately expect. Within a family there were any number of possible configurations, alliances, and affinities — none set in stone, all open for renegotiation unto the grave — but for them, things had assumed a fairly standard alignment: the son took after the mother, the daughter after the father. What enabled Miriam to wholeheartedly embrace God and His strictures, she had passed on to Benzion. And whatever independence, whatever unruliness of spirit Kotler possessed, had been imbibed or inherited by his daughter. Even if angry with him, her way, like his, would be to confront, not to evade.

— Where are you? he heard his daughter say in a parental tone.

— A quiet place, Kotler replied.

— Another secret? Dafna said acerbically. I’ve been calling you.